


A Flash of the Future

by helsinkibaby



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Community: 1-million-words, F/M, Fluff, Pre Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 13:03:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7104697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe realises nothing will ever be the same again</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Flash of the Future

**Author's Note:**

> For the one Million words remix/ inspiration challenge. - http://1-million-words.livejournal.com/1678297.html?thread=17149657#t17149657
> 
> This was meant to be one thing then became something else entirely...

The car pulls away and though he strains to keep it in view, the tail-lights soon fade from sight. Joe does his best to ignore the pang of loss he feels as he stares down the street - after all, he's been prediction that Barry and Iris were a match for well over a decade, he should be happy that he's been proven right. The wedding, a simple back yard affair, had been nothing short of joyous and Iris and Barry had stayed long after the last of the guests had left, indeed he'd almost had to shove them out the door to start their honeymoon. Besides, in a couple of weeks, they'll be back here, living with him, and it'll be like nothing has changed. 

He tries to tell himself that, tries to tell himself that it's last glass of bourbon that Barry has pressed into his hand that's making him melancholy. He just can't shake the feeling that nothing's ever going to be the same again - his little girl is now somebody's wife and while he loves them both to death, he can't help but feel that, as much as he's gained, he's lost something too. 

"You ok?" A soft voice behind him has him turning and he forces a smile to his face. 

"Yeah, I'm good." Caitlin inclines her head ever so slightly but she doesn't call him on the lie. Instead she just smiles up at him, pulls her wrap more tightly around her shoulders against the chill of the evening. "Where's Cisco?"

He thinks it's a reasonable question since they came together, but it makes Caitlin roll her eyes. "He and Wally discovered a common love for some online car racing game...." She waves her hand, the one that's not clutching her wrap tightly, in small circles that serve to indicate she doesn't have the faintest clue what she's talking about, nor does she have any real interest in finding out. "I figured out you hadn't come back yet, thought I'd check on you..."

Joe shoves his hands into his pants pockets and rocks on his feet as he glances in the direction that the car had gone. "I'm ok," he says again. "Living in the past a little too much right now... but that's the bourbon thinking for me." Caitlin nods, the motion and the breeze combining to loosen a strand of hair from her carefully coiffed up-do that's probably not far from coming undone. She laughs, a little breathlessly he thinks, as she reaches up to tuck it behind her ear and his fingers twitch with the impulse to do the same. 

Which would be wrong, he tells himself, and not for the first time either. 

This is Caitlin. Barry's friend, Iris's bridesmaid. Doesn't matter how lonely he might be, how long it's been since a woman turned his head, how much time he's been spending with her since they've been helping to plan and organise this wedding. It doesn't matter that he couldn't take his eyes off her today, that their brief spin around the dance floor had only left him wanting more. 

He can't have more and he knows it. 

Even if there are times - like standing here on the sidewalk in front of his house, with her head tilted and a look in her eyes that he hasn't seen from a woman in far too long - that he thinks this crazy attraction he has for her might not be one sided. 

He hears her suck in a deep breath, then she sets her jaw, takes a step forward-

\- And stops as there's a hiss of electricity and a blur of red and a blast of wind.

"Barry?" He turns towards the dark figure at the end of the street, automatically stepping in front of Caitlin as he does so. He hears her huff of unmistakable disapproval but he's distracted by the figure, because the size and shape are all wrong for Barry, to say nothing of the hair which is a riot of dark curls just like Iris had when she was a teenager...

"Papaw?" The girl - for it is a girl, eighteen if she's a day if he were to guess - stares at him with his mother's eyes, Iris's eyes, stares at him and the simple word she speaks knocks the breath out of him, sends his head reeling. His heart begins to pound in his chest, a cold chill flooding his veins as the memory of a long ago throwaway comment to Barry comes back to him. 

_My grandkids are gonna call me Papaw._

Caitlin steps up beside him, her fingers curling around his elbow. He takes a second to glance down at her, sees only confusion on her face. "Who are you?" she asks and the girl's face drops when she sees her there.  

"Meemaw Cate? Your hair..." She stops talking, clenches her jaw shut with visible effort. "I'm too early. Damn it, I came too far." Joe gets the feeling she's talking to herself more than them but he's still reeling except now it's not only at what she called him but what she called Caitlin. 

The girl stares at them, real regret in her face. "I'm sorry," she says. "I have to go." 

"Wait!" Joe calls after her, Caitlin too, but she's gone with the same blast of speed and flash of light with which she came and all Joe and Caitlin can do is stare at one another. 

"Was that..." Caitlin's voice shakes and he knows it's nothing to do with the cold. 

"I think it was." He stares at her in utter amazement, sees the same expression on her face too and just like moments earlier, he gets the feeling that things are never going to be the same again. 


End file.
